Wisconsin has the power to reduce gun violence

[SecularMotion]

Here are four things Wisconsin could do right now to save lives:

1) Expand background checks to all gun sales. Research by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research found that Connecticut's comprehensive handgun permitting and background check law reduced gun homicides by 40%. Repeal of a comparable law in Missouri resulted in a 25% increase in gun homicides. These laws keep guns from moving from the legal to the illegal marketplace, where they can easily fall into the hands of criminals, juveniles or the dangerously mentally ill.

2) Submit records of all prohibited people to the federal FBI database for gun purchaser background checks. Background checks depend on good information about who is disqualified from owning guns. But record submissions from states are incomplete. Wisconsin could do better. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, Wisconsin ranked 22nd among U.S. states in its rate of submission of mental health records to this database as of 2014.

3) Insist that gun dealers wait until the background check is complete before completing the sale. The Charleston shooter was able to buy a gun even though he had not cleared a background check because federal law allows sales to proceed if the check cannot be completed within three business days. Fifteen states have addressed this. (By contrast, Wisconsin repealed its waiting period for handgun sales this year.)

4) Adopt a procedure to allow a court to order temporary removal of firearms from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Sometimes, people who pass a background check later become at risk for violence. While homicide rates in Milwaukee get a lot of attention, most gun deaths in Wisconsin are suicides, in which mental illness is often a factor. The Consortium for Risk-Based Firearms Policy, which includes the nation's leading researchers, practitioners and advocates, recommends a procedure — similar to a domestic violence restraining order — to allow families and law enforcement to petition a court for temporary removal of firearms from people undergoing a crisis. A similar law will take effect in California next year.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/wisconsin-has-the-power-to-reduce-gun-violence-b99553957z1-321878951.html

[gejohnston]

1. junk science

The study would not pass peer review nor be published in a criminology journal.
http://ethicsalarms.com/2015/06/14/the-washington-posts-post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc-gun-control-deceit/

[pablo_marmol]

2. And here's a link in ge's article trouncing this tripe:

http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/2015/06/daniel-websters-cherry-picked-claim-that-firearm-homicides-in-connecticut-fell-40-because-of-a-gun-licensing-law/

[pablo_marmol]

3. And here's a brazen lie in your piffle, SecMo:

As the toll of gun deaths and injuries continues to climb.......

The Controllers truly have no shame, and rely on the ignorance and bigotry of their audience who'll never question what they're told.

Edited to add: Check out section #4 in SecMo's brilliant piece: ........most gun deaths in Wisconsin are suicides.

Most gun deaths nationally are, and always have been suicides - a fact that the author would prefer his readers not be aware of.

[Eleanors38]

4. You should be aware how universities accrete "centers" and "institutes" in accordance with policy

established elsewhere. For years, Columbia University has had attached to it the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) whose mission is to support research which is negative to marijuana and other drugs, and which stifles research at other universities. While Johns Hopkins' "Center" does not have the quasi-political ability to quash studies, it doesn't really stay in business by showing anything "positive" about the right to keep and bear arms; one institute is beholding to the federal government's prohibition policies, the center to a billionaire's prohibition policies. But the result is the same: Some very odoriferous "studies" under the mantel of academic and scientific neutrality.